According to Iran's Minister of Health, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, approximately 10 million people now cope with drug addiction in Iran. Speaking on the occasion of the International Day Against Drug abuse, Dastjerdi noted that over the past few months, the quantity of both drugs and alcohol seized by authorities from Iranian citizens has topped 400 tons. In particular, alcohol (a formally-banned substance) has become increasingly popular among Iranians, and confiscation of alcoholic beverages by regime authorities has increased by 69 percent over the past year. (Tehran Fars, July 2, 2012)

Hemet: Marine convicted of smuggling rifle from Saddam palace - An AK-47 seized from Saddam Hussein’s Royal Guard, belonging to Twentynine Palms Marine Joel Cleve Miller. Federal prosecutors said former Staff Sgt. Joel Cleve Miller, 40, was found guilty of possession of an illegal chrome AK-47 that he smuggled back from Iraq during a 14-month tour in 2005. When he returned to his home in Hemet, he bragged to several friends that he smuggled the gun back after it once belonged to Saddam Hussein’s Royal Guard. The U.S. Marine Corps discharged Miller in December 2011 after 20 years in the...

The North Carolina state legislature has de-funded Planned Parenthood — with legislative leaders agreeing to a state budget that redirects $343,000 in family planning funding from Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion business, to county health departments. The budget was enacted at midnight last night after the legislature voted to override Governor Bev Perdue’s veto and it was the second time the legislature overrode a Perdue veto of a budget de-funding Planned Parenthood. Today, the Susan B. Anthony List, a national pro-life organization, praised Majority Leader Paul Stam, State Representatives Justin Burr, Marilyn Avila, Nelson Dollar, and the North Carolina...

A young patient who died of dehydration at a leading teaching hospital phoned police from his bed because he was so thirsty, an inquest heard yesterday. Officers arrived at Kane Gorny's bedside, but were told by nurses that he was in a confused state and were sent away. The keen footballer and runner, 22, died of dehydration a few hours later. A coroner had such grave concerns about the case that she referred it to police. Yesterday an inquest was told how Mr Gorny died after blunders and neglect by 'lazy and careless' medical staff at St George's Hospital in...

Chief Justice John Roberts recently struck another blow against limited government by creating a new, unrestrained power to use taxes to compel activity (even if the proponents of the tax insist vehemently that it is not a tax!). There's something tragic about a decision that says federal powers are practically unlimited, checked only by public opinion and the political process. There should be a large and healthy sphere of American life that is insulated and protected from political negotiation. But we cannot dwell on that tragedy. We have no recourse left but to engage and win in the political process....

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts flipped late in the game on the Supreme Court ruling on "Obamacare" and ended up writing both the majority opinion and most of the opposing dissent, sources said Tuesday. Supreme Court experts described the move by Roberts, whose decisive swing vote to uphold President Barack Obama's overhaul of the failing US health care system, as unprecedented. The ruling on the reforms, Obama's signature domestic policy which aims to provide insurance to most of the 50 million Americans who lack it, was written in such a way that one can tell it was at first...

Lobbyists from Coca-Cola and other big soda companies have met with mayoral candidates and City Council members. Canvassers hired by the beverage industry are stopping New Yorkers on the street to solicit signatures on petitions. Facebook and Twitter pages tell readers to “say no to a #sodaban.” Confronting a high-profile attack on its fizzy products, the American soft-drink industry is beginning an aggressive campaign to fight New York City’s proposed restrictions on large servings of sugary drinks. Hoping for a debate about freedom, not fatness, the industry has created a coalition called New Yorkers for Beverage Choices to coordinate its...

A growing number of Republican state leaders are revolting against the major Medicaid expansion called for under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, threatening to undermine one of the law's most fundamental goals: insuring millions of poor Americans. The Supreme Court opened the door Thursday, June 28, when it announced that although the rest of the law is constitutional, the federal government cannot punish states that refuse to adopt the measure's more generous eligibility rules for Medicaid. The Republican governors of four states -- Florida, Iowa, Louisiana and South Carolina -- have declared that they want to opt out of...

D.C. Council members planned to meet face-to-face with officials from Pepco as soon as Tuesday to address the “unacceptable” pace of the utility’s recovery efforts after Friday night’s fierce storm swept through the region and left hundreds of thousands without power in stifling heat. Their stern response to a third day of widespread outages builds on years of skepticism aimed at the utility that serves nearly 800,000 customers in the District and Maryland. Several city lawmakers could empathize with their constituents’ plight, because they, too, lacked power in their homes. They wondered aloud whether Pepco gave “short shrift” to the...

I wondered about this on the afternoon of the decision. It stands to reason: If, as most everyone believes, Roberts initially assigned the majority opinion to himself and then ended up flipping at the eleventh hour, the four conservative dissenters would have had to scramble to come up with an opinion of their own while handling the rest of their caseload. (Roberts authored no other opinions over the final two months of the term so he and his clerks could conceivably have drafted something new from scratch late in the process.) The easiest way to do that would be to...

If you have any doubts that Justice Roberts was wrong just listen to Mark Levin....He's ready to fight the Revolution again...... Now Mark isn't what you'd called subtle....when he gets upset he let's it all hang out, and that is why I love him......that's how I get....I scream and yell and vent against the enemy bambi and his criminal accomplices in the Senate...... But I can assure you, if bambi care had been killed, Mark Levin wouldn't be mounting the attack he is......an attack we really need to win John Roberts saw that America hated this law and bambi and...

When Teach for America alumnus Bill Ferguson took on six-term incumbent George Della for a Maryland Senate seat two years ago, he benefited from the energetic support of his fellow Teach for America alumni—but he had to overcome the strident opposition of the teachers’ unions. Ferguson upset Della in the Democratic primary and went on to win the general election, making him only the second Teach for America alumnus to secure a seat in a state legislature—following Mike Johnston, who joined the Colorado Senate in 2009. Johnston and Ferguson aren’t likely to be alone for long: At least six TFA...

Remember when President Obama stood in the Rose Garden and told the American people of his administrationâ€™s new plan to stop the deportation of younger illegal immigrants if they met certain criteria? Remember when he promised the policy change isnâ€™t amnesty? Â Â Over to you, Washington Times: Federal immigration authorities have begun granting tentative legal status to illegal immigrants under President Obamaâ€™s deportation halt â€” and in some cases are even ignoring the administrationâ€™s eligibility rules to stop deportations for those who shouldnâ€™t qualify, according to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Â Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican,...

In the last year as Democrats have tried to oppose all efforts to ensure the integrity of the vote in the fall election, they have derided voter ID laws as not only racist in motivation but also unnecessary. Though the basic proposition that anyone who shows up at the polls ought to be able to prove they are who they say they are and are registered voters seems like common sense, liberals have claimed such measures are utterly superfluous because voter fraud is not a problem in the United States. And because there is no problem to be fixed, any...

The Corpus Christi, Tex. Police Department has found itself on the business end of a civil rights lawsuit after the Justice Department concluded that a physical ability test used when considering job applications discriminates against women. As a condition for employment, new applicants must pass a physical ability test (PAT) involving: pullups, a 300-meter run, a 1.5 mile run, and sit-ups. Only 19 percent of female applicants passed this test between 2005 and 2009, compared to 63 percent of men, the DOJ complaint records. The Justice Department says that the test discriminates

Wasserman Schultz: ObamaCare Not A Tax, IRS "Easiest" Way To Enforce PenaltyPosted on July 2, 2012 **SNIP** "The way we usually think of taxation, Wolf, is that taxation as the IRS administers is collected on broad swaths and large categories of individuals. This is a penalty that will be assessed on the tax return if you choose to roll the dice and make us all pay for your being irresponsible and increase all of our health care costs," Wasserman Schultz said on the Monday evening broadcast of CNN's "The Situation Room."

The Dean of Students at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey died suddenly on Sunday after he was in a jet ski crash. Capt. Alan "Dex" Poindexter was 51. The accident happened when the astronaut's 26-year-old son, Zachary, collided into the back of a jet ski that Poindexter was riding off the coast of Florida. "They were both moving and for some reason Capt. Poindexter stopped his watercraft and Zachary for some reason didn't see him stop," said Stan Kirkland, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "Zachary's watercraft went up and struck Capt. Poindexter." Another son,...

Ballot summaries for two measures that will appear on the November ballot were released today by Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. **SNIP** Carnahan's approved ballot summary asks voters: Shall Missouri law be amended to deny individuals, families, and small businesses the ability to access affordable health care plans through a state-based health benefit exchange unless authorized by statute, initiative or referendum or through an exchange operated by the federal government as required by the federal health care act? No direct costs or savings for state and local governmental entities are expected from this proposal. Indirect costs or savings related to...

Big US banks submit "living wills" to regulatorsBy ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer – 1 hour ago Nine of the largest U.S. banks have submitted plans offering roadmaps for how the government could break up and sell off their assets if they are in danger of failing. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released summaries of the "living wills" on Tuesday for Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and UBS. The plans were required under the 2010 financial overhaul, which gave regulators the power to seize and dismantle banks that threaten the...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed election reform bills that sparked angry protests and cries of voter suppression during committee hearings. Snyder, in one day doubling the number of bills vetoed during his tenure, nixed bills that aimed to prevent voting fraud by requiring a voter to reaffirm U.S. citizenship before receiving a ballot and requiring photo ID when picking up an absentee ballot from a city office. He also rejected a bill that would have required training for people, companies and organizations participating in voter registration drives. Snyder in a release said he appreciates the issue of...

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

The day after the ruling came down, this newspaper carried an article that explained Justice Roberts's decision this way: "By confounding charges that the court is too partisan, the chief justice might have earned sufficient political capital to move to the right during the next term, when the court will likely confront a host of hot-button issues, including affirmative action, gay marriage and the continued vitality of the Voting Rights Act." If earning "sufficient political capital" is simply a consequence of his ruling, Justice Roberts cannot be blamed. If it was the aim, however, and it led to his voting...

Some who spoke with my office claim they were “alarmed” by the substance of the memorandum and it caused such a stir that ATF planned to put a panel together to address the allegations but someone within DOJ suppressed the idea. The possibility that DOJ was aware of this memorandum on February 3, 2011, and still sent the erroneous letter to Congress on February 4, 2011, raises more questions about DOJ’s claim that faulty information from Department components inadvertently led to the false letter. This was direct, documented information from street level agents in a far better position to know...

NEW YORK, NEW YORK, July 2, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) Â– Fresh off its decision to celebrate Â“LGBT monthÂ” by incorporating a homosexual Â“marriageÂ” storyline into its X-Men comic books, Marvel Comics has announced it is marking National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October by teaming up with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. Superheroes in several comic lines will be drawn with a special pink cover to mark the comic lineâ€™s affiliation with Komen. The comics specifically involved include the Avengers, Captain America, Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four, Invincible Iron Man, Mighty Thor, Uncanny X-Men, and Wolverine. In...

President Obama’s public humiliation of the Supreme Court, that is: [Embedded video] The Right needs to stop kidding itself that last week’s epic Dolchstoss amounts to anything but a loss: a loss to the country, a loss to the court’s apolitical reputation, and a personal loss for the chief justice, whose legacy now seems permanently sullied. From CBS News: Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court’s four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama’s health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to...

But judges are also not hired as political philosophers, Burkean or otherwise. Their legitimacy comes from a credible application of the law. And the outcome of the health care case came down to one point of law: Roberts' interpretation of the statute as a constitutional tax rather than an unconstitutional mandate. In his ruling, Roberts admits this view is hardly the most obvious one. "The question is not whether that is the most natural interpretation of the mandate, but only whether it is a 'fairly possible' one." The problem is that Roberts' interpretation is not fairly, or even remotely, possible....

Just remember, guys: The Internal Revenue Service might be the best-equipped entity to administer the "penalty," and the "penalty" might be assessed on your tax return, but the requirement to pay a "penalty" if you don't buy health insurance is most definitively not a tax. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Speaking on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer," Wasserman Schultz said Monday, that the law should be enforced by the federal governmentâ€™s taxing arm because â€śitâ€™s simply a matter of ease in administration.â€ťâ€śThe way we usually think of taxation, Wolf, is that taxation as the IRS administers is...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Midwest ranchers have never been enamored with environmental regulators, but they really began to complain after learning that federal inspectors were flying over their land to look for problems. The Environmental Protection Agency flies over power plants and other facilities nationwide to identify potential air, water and land pollution. It began using aerial surveillance in the Midwest in 2010 to check farms for violations of federal clean water regulations. Ranchers who object to the program said they're not trying to hide anything. It's the quiet approach the EPA took with the program designed to spot...

Mitch McConnell is in the headlines again for saying the odds are against those wanting repeal of Obamacare. “[I]t’s a lot harder to undo something than it is to stop it in the first place,” he said in part. For once, let’s give McConnell the benefit of the doubt and suggest he is talking about the present Congress, not the next Congress, though in actual context he seems to mean both. Let’s be charitable. The truth is, I don’t expect Republicans in Congress to be fully committed to repeal next year even if they have Mitt Romney in the White...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A failure to avoid the “fiscal cliff” could slash the U.S. growth rate to under a 1% annual rate and risk harming the global economy, the International Monetary Fund said in a report released Tuesday. The fiscal cliff is Washington shorthand for current tax and spending plans, enacted in law when the debt ceiling was narrowly passed last summer, that would shrink the deficit by around 4% of gross domestic product in 2013. These policies “could reduce growth to well below 1%, with negative growth early next year and significant negative repercussions on an already fragile world...

China is closely cooperating with the navies of Japan and India in patrolling against piracy off Somalia, a sign of the country’s greater willingness to work with other nations in safeguarding global trade despite mixed sentiments among Chinese toward the country’s main Asian rivals. Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force became the lead navy Sunday in the pact that allows the three to synchronize patrols and best allocate each country’s escort resources, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters at a briefing. Analysts say the escort pact is a sign of growing Chinese naval confidence that could reduce the chances of...

When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Obamacare’s individual mandate on Thursday — and in fact dubbed it a tax in spite of the Obama administration’s denials — no one was more jubilant this past weekend than the recently hired agents at the Internal Revenue Service who get to keep their jobs, according to a law enforcement official in Washington, D.C. Their jobs are now safe and secure. Over the weekend, President Barack Obama’s minions swarmed the Sunday morning news shows arguing that Americans were not going to be taxed to raise money for Obamacare, yet reporters failed...

The coastal town of Depoe Bay is about to experience its quietest July 3 in 19 years. Town officials this year reluctantly announced they were cancelling the annual pre-Independence Day fireworks show, following pressure from federal wildlife managers who said the noise disrupts protected sea birds. he shows ran smoothly for two decades. Then, in 2010, a Depoe Bay resident contacted the federal wildlife service and reported seeing seabirds nesting at Pirates Cove take flight during the fireworks. The federal agency asked the city to consider moving the fireworks to Fogarty Creek State Recreation Area, a little farther north. But...

1. State will avoid $10 - $100 million per year cost of operating Exchange. 2. Diifficult for IRS to track employees and enforce individual mandate ("tax"). 3. People will not be automatically forced into Medicaid against their will. 4. "Essential health benefits" including contraception will be difficult to require. 5. People will have more options than Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum policies. 6. Employers cannot drop employees and force them into the Exchange. 7. Employers can't be fined $2,000 per employee if just one uses Exchange. 8. Entitlements will not be expanded through Exchange-based tax subsidies. 9. Individual privacy will be...

Chinese authorities vowed Tuesday to crack down on protesters after riot police clashed with hundreds of people rallying against a planned new metals plant over fears about its environmental impact. The latest bout of social unrest to hit China occurred in the small city of Shifang, which is still trying to recover after being badly hit in a 2008 earthquake that killed 88,000 people in the southwest of the country. The violence erupted on Monday when, according to the official account, protesters attacked government offices with bricks and stones, smashed cars, and clashed directly with police and government employees. In...

House chairman says ‘amnesty’ violates president’s own rulesFederal immigration authorities have begun granting tentative legal status to illegal immigrants under President Obama’s deportation halt — and in some cases are even ignoring the administration’s eligibility rules to stop deportations for those who shouldn’t qualify, according to the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said he’s learned some illegal immigrants who have been in the U.S. less than five years have had their deportations canceled, even though Mr. Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano had listed the five-year mark as one of their criteria....

The number of people receiving food stamps hit a record high during the recent recession and remains high. But that has not been the case for welfare. In some states, welfare participation rates have actually decreased over the past few years. Equally surprising is the fact that less than one-third of the federal and state money currently spent on welfare is actually given to people as cash assistance. The rest is spent on specialized services such as child care, child welfare and teen pregnancy counseling, but the government really doesn’t know how these funds are used and who benefits. “We’ve...

<p>An Oregon town has reportedly canceled its annual fireworks show out of concern the Fourth of July pyrotechnics will scare sea birds roosting nearby.</p>
<p>Town officials in Depoe Bay have announced the cancellation of the annual pre-Independence Day fireworks show on July 3 following pressure from federal wildlife managers who said the noise disrupts sea birds in the area, the Oregonian reports.</p>

Amid John Roberts' craven surrender to "the political branches" on Obamacare -- a bizarre capitulation, at that, since Roberts honored a statute that he hallucinated, but neither Congress nor the president authored nor authorized -- Americans should remember just how many rules, standards, and traditions had to be twisted or bulldozed in order for the [un]Affordable Care Act to become law. For Obamacare to be enacted in the first place required each of more than a dozen, highly unlikely or even suspect, occurrences or actions. It then took some serious constitutional hocus pocus for it to survive in court. Consider...

A U.S. Navy oiler slipped away from a fuel depot on the Puget Sound in Washington state one recent day, headed toward the central Pacific and into the storm over the Pentagon's controversial green fuels initiative. In its tanks, the USNS Henry J. Kaiser carried nearly 900,000 gallons of biofuel blended with petroleum to power the cruisers, destroyers and fighter jets of what the Navy has taken to calling the "Great Green Fleet," the first carrier strike group to be powered largely by alternative fuels. Conventionally powered ships and aircraft in the strike group will burn the blend in an...

On Friday, while voters were still trying to digest the Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare, the House and Senate passed an omnibus spending bill. The storms that wrought so much damage in the Washington, DC metro area Friday night might very well have been a manifestation of divine displeasure over the betrayal of conservatives by the massive spending in the student loan, highway construction, and flood insurance bill. As John Hayward noted in Human Events, "Those three subjects have nothing to do with each other, but packaging them together made it far more difficult to vote against any specific portion...

Here's the CNN clip: http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/02/dnc-chair-tells-cnn-health-care-is-a-penalty/?iref=allsearch From her mouth: "It's not a tax". The Internal Revenue Service would be the “easiest enforcer” of penalties against those who refuse to comply for those who fail to not pay the tax that isn't. “This is a penalty that will be assessed on the tax return if you choose to roll the dice and make us all pay for your being irresponsible and increase all of our health care costs...“We’re not going to tolerate that any more in America. You have to be responsible and you have to pay a penalty if you choose...

The US recovery "remains tepid", according to the annual report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has cut its growth forecast for the US economy to 2% this year from an earlier estimate of 2.1%. The IMF warned of risks from the eurozone debt crisis and uncertainties surrounding domestic policies, with an election in November and the debt ceiling needing to be raised in 2013. But it said there was also a chance that the economy could recover faster. The IMF said non-financial firms could invest more than expected and the housing market recovery may accelerate. Its report said...

A local libertarian think tank’s recent email blast to 12,000 teachers encouraging them to drop their union membership has further inflamed tense relations between the Clark County School District and the local teachers union.

By next month, only 165,000 of more than 1 million jobless Greeks will receive unemployment benefits, according to the labor institute of the country’s two largest unions, ADEDY and GSEE. Speaking on Skai TV on Tuesday morning, the institutes research adviser Giorgos Romanias said that the one-year unemployment benefit will expire next month for thousands more workers who have lost their jobs, leaving just 165,000 people still eligible for benefits. Romanias also predicted that the actual number of unemployed Greeks, including the long-term jobless, will reach 1.6 million, or close to 30 percent by the end of the year, rather...

U.S. states and localities have more than $2 trillion of unfunded pension liabilities, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday, citing data on plans offered by 8,500 local governments and over 14,000 individual entities. The total liabilities for fiscal 2010 were more than three times the amount reported by local governments. "Pension liabilities are widely acknowledged to be understated," Moody's Managing Director Timothy Blake said. Most state fiscal years end on June 30. The rising cost of public pensions has strained finances for cities around the country. Stockton, California, which last week became the biggest U.S. city to file for Chapter...

PARIS (AP) -- An official says French investigators have searched the home and offices of former President Nicolas Sarkozy as part of a probe into suspected illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign. The official says Judge Jean-Michel Gentil and other investigators from the Paris financial crimes unit conducted the search. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be publicly named discussing an ongoing investigation. The probe centers on the finances of France's richest woman, L'Oreal cosmetics heiress Lilliane Bettencourt.

Drones, kill lists, computer viruses and administration leaks are all the rage in the current political debate. They indeed merit serious scrutiny at a time when the rules of war, and technologies available for war, are changing fast. That said, these issues are not the foreign policy centerpiece of the 2012 presidential race. Economic renewal and fiscal reform have become the preeminent issues, not only for domestic and economic policy but for foreign policy as well. As the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm.Michael G. Mullen, was fond of saying, national debt has become perhaps our top...

Telly Hudgins has been stopped and frisked by the police too many times to count in the Brownsville, New York, public housing project where he lives. One occasion sticks in his memory. "I had my pajamas on and my slippers on and I'm emptying my garbage" at the trash chute. "They asked me for ID to prove I lived there. Who walks around in their pajamas with ID?" asked the black, 35-year-old counselor for the mentally handicapped. He says he complained about the search and was issued a summons for disorderly conduct. Deborah Richardson, 60, a black postal worker, has...